This was on the CNN news scroll. It was so dumb but I had to laugh since it was so extreme in its inappropriateness I will give the kid a break since he grew up in his own disneyworld but I hope he gets himself educated now.

This was on the CNN news scroll. It was so dumb but I had to laugh since it was so extreme in its inappropriateness I will give the kid a break since he grew up in his own disneyworld but I hope he gets himself educated now.

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Not so sure on the "grew up" part, there. Seems like he has a lot of growing up left to do.

Maybe inside his head that was a way of saying he admires her to the point that he likes to think that she would have admired him back? Just being devil's advocate here... or maybe he has just drunk his own koolaid a little bit too much, either way I think he meant it has a compliment he just doesn't have the maturity to see that it was a situation where he should have kept his own world out of it.

Well honestly, is anyone REALLY surprised by this? It's not worth getting upset over, considering that a good portion of his fan base would have the exact same lack of perspective on the gravity of the subject of WWII & the causes of the Holocaust. Most of them have little to no personal connection to it, so it is of lesser importance to them in terms of learning about it. I'm close to it, as I am Jewish, the granddaughter of a WWII vet, & my mother's entire family outside of her, her parents & sister were in occupied Norway, & it wasn't until 1945 that they had any news from them.

FYI - there is considerable outcry locally about a writing assignment asking students at an Albany NY high school to write a persuasive essay from the POV of the Nazis. I don't what the fuss is about that, either, considering that neither the students nor most of the people clutching their pearls over it have the requisite knowledge base to articulate in a scholarly manner what was in the minds of the people responsible for the rise of Nazism. One student who was interviewed said it would have made more sense to write from the Jewish POV - which illustrates whole point of the assignment IMO.

I bet you JB won't be changing the monkey's diaper for the rest of that monkey's life, assuming he even keeps the monkey after it reaches puberty. I've seen utube videos of people and their pet monkeys. They can be cute when young but can grow up to be quite nasty, especially for people that don't have the time or the inclination to devote to the monkeys' needs. It's like having a child that never grows up and can never be potty trained. Ewwww.

FYI - there is considerable outcry locally about a writing assignment asking students at an Albany NY high school to write a persuasive essay from the POV of the Nazis. I don't what the fuss is about that, either, considering that neither the students nor most of the people clutching their pearls over it have the requisite knowledge base to articulate in a scholarly manner what was in the minds of the people responsible for the rise of Nazism. One student who was interviewed said it would have made more sense to write from the Jewish POV - which illustrates whole point of the assignment IMO.

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I had heard that the assignment was to write from the Nazi point of view as to why Jews were evil ... not on anything else.

Maybe inside his head that was a way of saying he admires her to the point that he likes to think that she would have admired him back?.

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I vaguely know who Bieber is and wouldn't even recognize him or any of his songs, so I could hardly be more neutral towards him; this exactly how I interpreted his comment. I thought he had said something a lot worse than that when I saw some headlines about him making a comment about Anne Frank.

Of course he isn't mature yet, he's just 19 and I would guess that his occupation may very well make him mature in an uneven way (in other words, I'm not sure what he is doing is the most healthy way to grow up).

Well honestly, is anyone REALLY surprised by this? It's not worth getting upset over, considering that a good portion of his fan base would have the exact same lack of perspective on the gravity of the subject of WWII & the causes of the Holocaust. Most of them have little to no personal connection to it, so it is of lesser importance to them in terms of learning about it. I'm close to it, as I am Jewish, the granddaughter of a WWII vet, & my mother's entire family outside of her, her parents & sister were in occupied Norway, & it wasn't until 1945 that they had any news from them.

FYI - there is considerable outcry locally about a writing assignment asking students at an Albany NY high school to write a persuasive essay from the POV of the Nazis. I don't what the fuss is about that, either, considering that neither the students nor most of the people clutching their pearls over it have the requisite knowledge base to articulate in a scholarly manner what was in the minds of the people responsible for the rise of Nazism. One student who was interviewed said it would have made more sense to write from the Jewish POV - which illustrates whole point of the assignment IMO.

I vaguely know who Bieber is and wouldn't even recognize him or any of his songs, so I could hardly be more neutral towards him; this exactly how I interpreted his comment. I thought he had said something a lot worse than that when I saw some headlines about him making a comment about Anne Frank.

Of course he isn't mature yet, he's just 19 and I would guess that his occupation may very well make him mature in an uneven way (in other words, I'm not sure what he is doing is the most healthy way to grow up).

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Agree. Generations of teenagers who have learned about Anne Frank and read her diary have connected with her in their own ways, and I think Justin is no different. Here's what he actually said:

"Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber."

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The CNN article equates this with the idea of Anne Frank becoming a "devoted fan" and one of the "adolescent and teen girls obsessed" with him. But from what I've read and seen in the past, Justin appreciates his fans very deeply and thinks that as a group they are great people - and therefore, he thinks Anne would have fit right in. He might have even been saying that he hoped he was as worthy of her admiration as she is of his.

By the way, who was it on here recently who was saying what a great PR team Justin Bieber had? Scarlet for them.

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Might have been me around the time someone was accusing him of fathering their child and we had a thread about it. His management, legal and PR teams would have had a lot of involvement in deciding how to address the accusation, what course to take, developing statements, preparing him for interviews and monitoring the situation as it developed.

The PR team would have little to do with this though - sure they've trained him and counseled him quite a bit over the years, and might have even planned this visit to get some good press, but what he said in this case comes from him, and my bet is the PR team had no problem with it. PR people know that you can never win 100% approval because there will always be people who are against you no matter what you do. The only concern is when that percentage of those against starts to erode the percentage that is in favour - and in the case of politics, the all important middle ground - the people on the fence who could be swayed either way. For Justin, given that the people in favour - who likely found his comments touching and inspiring because they already like him - number in the tens of millions, and given that at this point the strategy would be to win over new fans musically, not personally, stories like this have little impact.

I personally cannot wait until the names Bieber, Kardashian, Kanye, and others are nothing but a distant bad memory. Still, JB is a very popular celebrity whose visit to the Anne Frank museum has made big news. There's more good in this than bad.

Or a joke as in a joking comment- in which case, to me, that is just as sickening as if he really meant it. I'm not sure the sign in at that house is the best place for a joke.

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I meant as in maybe he was saying it with a wink.

And I think, from what I read of Anne, she wouldn't have wanted people to be all glum and solemn visiting her house. She wasn't like that when she was in the house herself in a much worse situation than most of us are in. Her friends and family said she liked to tell and hear jokes. So I think she would be more amused by Justin's comment than by yours that someone cracking a joke in her museum was sickening. I think the person who said this:

"'Despite everything, i believe people are really good at heart' - Anne Frank I think before everyone goes bashing Justin Bieber we should take a moment to think about these words and why Anne said them."

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got it right. And I think Jenny has a point too when she says:

He might have even been saying that he hoped he was as worthy of her admiration as she is of his.

I think all this is much ado about nothing. Bieber meant no disrespect I am sure, however, if it gets a few more people reading up on Anne Frank, WW2 and the holocaust, then something good would have come out of all this.